salsa

I don't want the entire month of September to be full of sad sappy posts, but I think it is bound to happen at least a little bit. My dad died 9/19/04 and with the 7 year anniversary creeping up on us I think he is on our minds even more so than every other day.
Over the summer of 2004 my parents started making really big strides to try to live a healthier lifestyle. They both joined the gym and my very picky eater of a father started to try to branch out a little bit with new foods. One of his loves was always salsa. One day he decided that rather than buying the premade kind, he would attempt to make his own. For most of the month of August salsa making overtook the weekends. We were working towards the perfect pico de gallo style salsa. We tried everything from different types of tomatoes, methods of peeling the tomatoes, how fine to chop the onion, how much lime vs salt to add and so on and so on! Eventually we got a recipe that we loved. Unfortunately it is done mostly by feel and taste, but I managed to jot down the basics to share with you today!
I suck a little and didn't take all the pictures I wanted to, but hey - I was working from memory!

Start with 6 gorgeous ripe tomatoes

Peel them. I found that scoring the bottoms and dipping them into boiling water for 30 seconds and quickly removing
them works best. The skin basically falls right off!

Ta-Dah! Mix all ingredients together for giant bowl of amazing deliciousness.

Proceed to eat 2/3 of salsa on tortilla chips. Then eat 1/2 of a bottle of papaya enzyme to help with the gas bubble
created by the salsa consumption.

Daddy's Salsa:

6 large tomatoes, peeled

2 red onions

2 whole jalepeno peppers

1 lime

1 bunch cilantro

1 teaspoon (ish) salt

Directions:

• Peel the tomatoes. It is easiest to peel ripe tomatoes by cutting a small x into the bottom of the tomato and submerging it into boiling water for 30 seconds. *I dipped them in and removed them with a slotted spoon and put them on my counter to let them cool before peeling.
• Dice the tomatoes. *I like them pretty darn small. Since you won't be cooking this salsa, it is best to chop them pretty tiny.
• Dice the red onion. This should be even smaller than the tomato. You don't want to bite into any big chunks of onion. Really the best method would be to use the fine dice option on a mandoline.
• Grate the whole jalepeno, seeds and all.
• Zest and juice the lime.
• Chop the cilantro super tiny.
• Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Use a bowl that is one size bigger than what you think you'll need. Stirring the salsa is much easier with lots of extra room. Once you add the salt the salsa gets a bit soupy.
• Let it stand for as long as you can wait before eating it, I suggest at least 4 hours but really overnight is best.

I dug in immediately.